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Trauma Articles

The triage process implemented by civilian EMS professionals has a few similarities to the process used in the combat environment by tactical medics. Considering America's ongoing involvement in military operations overseas and events such as the Boston Marathon bombing, increased attention has been ...

Prehospital intravenous (IV) access is an essential part of the EMS practice. As patient care advocates, EMS providers are charged with applying current science to established practice; establishing vascular access is no different. As invasive – and potentially harmful to the patient – as ...

"Medicines will be well used when the doctor understands their nature, what man is, what life is, and what constitution and health are. Know these well and you will know their opposites; you will then know well how to devise a remedy." - Leonardo da Vinci Before we can intelligently discuss ...

One of the primary reasons for the development of modern prehospital care was the need to deliver prompt emergency care to patients who experienced sudden cardiac conditions such as myocardial infarction and cardiac arrest. Considering that EMS is the first medical contact in about 40 percent of patients ...

You are dispatched to a report of a "man down, unknown medical" outside of a busy supermarket. A minute later the dispatcher notifies you that bystander CPR is in progress. You see this as you pull into the parking lot: there is a small crowd standing around two individuals performing chest compressions ...

Traumatic amputations are a common combat injury. Soldiers report traumatic amputations as among the most emotionally disturbing forms of injury. Fortunately, the survival rate associated with these severe injuries is unprecedented, due to improvements in immediate treatment and stabilization. Advances ...

A repercussion of war is that it causes physical, psychological and emotional harm to people, so it's no surprise that many advances in trauma care stem from research done on the battlefield. Since the advent of modern out-of-hospital care in the U.S., EMS providers have benefited from lessons learned ...

An unstable spinal column with an undamaged spinal cord probably represents one of the greatest management challenges for emergency medical personnel. In 2010, the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center[1] reported approximately 12,000 new cases of spinal cord injury in the United States each ...

The appeal of powered cots and stair chairs is that they reduce injuries to EMS providers and perhaps to patients. At any given moment, 9.4 percent of all EMTs and paramedics are out of work from an injury or illness, and busy systems often skyrocket up to 19 percent. This is compared to 1.3 percent ...

Intravenous therapy has been a mainstay practice of EMS providers since the beginning of the prehospital profession. Intravenous access allows the delivery of multiple medications without having to puncture the patient’s veins multiple times, and permits volume replacement in dehydrated patients. ...